Open During Construction

by Don Reedy, San Diego, CA

Realtor, Renaissance Man

Author website

Had the opportunity to drive up from beautiful San Diego to Orange County today. One of the great things about Southern California is that driving 50 or 60 miles to do something or see someone (which would have driven my mom and dad nutso) is rather routine. I just cranked up some tunes, and this morning because it was misting a bit I chose Gordon Lightfoot and all that kind of folksy stuff, and away I went.

Teri Lussier always talks about her beloved Dayton, and it delights me that she takes the time to share something that suspends the day to day real estate chatter for some homespun fireside chatter. So while driving up past Camp Pendleton today I wondered aloud how many people have been so blessed to live in a place so steeped in natural beauty, just within miles reach of the whirling world of business.

Mountains to the east, Catalina silhouetted in the overcast Pacific to the west, (yeah, really 26 miles across the sea) lying low on the horizon, and no traffic to speak of. I was filled with actual joy. Now there’s a word you don’t read much of on a real estate posting these days. But there it was, palpable and real, and filling me up as I drifted up Interstate 5 at 70 miles an hour, singing along to the music.

Scott Schang is a mortgage broker, and really a remarkable guy on top of that. I already mentioned to you in a previous posting that I was able and blessed to meet Scott at the Unchained conference a couple of months ago in Phoenix. We’ve continued our relationship, and today I was driving up to solidify some of the ideas he had for helping me market my database of potential homebuyers.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I pulled into the parking lot of his business to find it amuck with “Open During Construction” signs, jackhammers, compressors, painters, welders, yellow tape, plastic and sandbags all around the whole business complex. I took out my trusty video camera and filmed a little, thinking I could RH it (that’s Ryan Hartman it) into a nifty video, but soon realized that the noise really WAS too much for a competent video to be made. So, disappointed for the first time today, I walked through a narrow passageway that was covered with plastic, and into the warm and inviting, but oh so much alive, offices of Broadview Mortgage.

Scott, you see, is always “Open During Construction.” Here’s a guy who last year attended the Unchained Event, and in one year operated with dust, grit, yellow tape, sandbags and jackhammers. He started to build, with a pretty good plan, but mostly with a hard hat mentality, a get-it-done mentality and a capitalist mentality. He listened to Greg and Brian’s ideas, applied a couple of wrestling holds to the real world problems those ideas generated, and started interacting with his clients. It started like a construction project, but now his model is starting to take shape. The drywall is definitely up, and the plumbing works just fine. He managed to bring on a fine group of finish carpenters, his processors and loan officers, and here all these folks were, working like a finely tuned machine inside four walls that just barely muffled the (refer back to my RH video) noise just outside.

I’m trying his techniques on for size. Seems to me that his “Open During Construction” methodology for launching some new ideas is just the right balance of genius and guts. His clients love his approach, and every day one of his ideas gets bounced or ballyhooed. So while I find the idea of doing my best work while the painters and plumbers and plasterers are in the same room with me a wee bit disconcerting, I think I’ll pass along to all of you more word of his success, and more importantly of his success on the heels and in the spirit of the Unchained Phoenix Bloodhound event in April.

“Open During Construction?” It’s the mantra of all the Bloodhound folks. Create. Do. Recreate. Redo. Live. Laugh. Love. Ah….the joy.